You're Beautiful With Brian Trust! Ft: Dar Bryant
ALTON - On a recent episode of “You’re Beautiful” with Brian Trust, Dar Bryant shared how he found God after spending time in prison. He went on to help hundreds of incarcerated individuals.
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Bryant was the director of The Dream Center in Alton, an offshoot of The River Church that helps individuals after they are released from prison. The center, which Bryant called “a resource hub,” meets the needs of individuals following their release with a faith-based approach. Bryant shared that he found God while in prison himself.
“When you’re in prison, it’s you and God,” he said. “So many people, they go to prison and they’re shattered. And you can do a bunch of things. Either you dive deeper into the muck, get caught up in all the clique-yness of everything, or else you dive into the Word, the Bible.”
Bryant grew up in the Riverbend region but fled to Arizona after he was involved in a series of crimes. He was eventually caught and sentenced. During his first stint in prison, he had a “come-to-Jesus moment” and began developing his relationship with God.
“There wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t committing a felony,” he remembered. “I just started praying again. I started coming back to the Lord. I was pouring out my heart and soul. God, I know that I got myself into this, but please, can you get me out?...He will take all the garbage in your life, everything, like He did with me, all that junk, and turn around and use it for good.”
While incarcerated, Bryant read the Bible three times front-to-back. He got out, then slipped and was sentenced again. He struggled, but he never lost his faith.
A few years later, Bryant and his family returned to the Riverbend region, and Bryant began attending The River Church. He shared his story with Pastor Mark Church but told no one else, until one day when Church inspired him to share with the congregation.
Easter Sunday, 2015, and Bryant was “sweating bullets” as a video of his testimony played for the congregation. As The River Church’s media director, he was sitting in the church’s media booth, where no one could see him. He waited to leave until he thought the sanctuary had cleared, but when he opened the door, there was a line of people all the way to the foyer, waiting to speak to him.
Bryant was shocked to realize how many people in the church had some experience with the criminal justice system. There were people with incarcerated relatives, those who had a history of incarceration themselves, even one man who was due to go to prison in a few weeks.
Church and Bryant realized that the Riverbend needed a prison ministry, and The Dream Center was born.
“Our plan is to get an individual that’s coming out of prison back on their feet within 90 days,” Bryant said of The Dream Center. “If they don’t have it together within 90 days, typically they’re going to start slipping back into their previous lifestyle, whatever it was that got them into prison in the first place…Really, what a lot of these guys need is just some one-on-one time with somebody who has been there, done that. And that’s the thing about The Dream Center, everyone there has life experience. We’ve all been there, done that.”
Bryant talked to a lot of people who raised questions about The Dream Center, including many who were skeptical of the center’s mission. But he believed in the mission and its impact on incarcerated individuals, their families and the community at large. He believed in the power of sharing his faith and helping those who need it.
“Jesus instructed us as Christians, as believers, to visit those in prison, to care for those people,” he explained. “This type of outreach, it’s not sexy. It’s not babies. It’s not dolphins. People look at it like, ‘What do I want to help a bunch of criminals for?’ Well, for one thing, Jesus told us to…We’re here to serve the least served. We’re here to serve those that are unloved, that no one really cares for…Instead of standing outside in the light and calling into the darkness, we’ve got to go into the darkness sometimes and be the light.”
That’s what The Dream Center does. For more information about The Dream Center, visit their official website. You can also purchase Bryant’s book, “360: A Full Circle,” on Amazon.
Dar Bryant passed away on Dec. 3, 2024. Read more about his impact, and how you can help his family, here.
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